


Spoils to the Victor

by Vehemently



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 15:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vehemently/pseuds/Vehemently
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the dim orange light, he was just an outline, a smooth shadow, a weapon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spoils to the Victor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vaznetti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaznetti/gifts).



John took a kick to the head from a guy who'd been stomped to death in a bar-brawl, and woke up to the feel of knuckles against his cheek.

"Dad?" came the voice he knew, and the knuckles again, a gentle tap. There was crackling in the background, danger-noise.

The emergency circuits turned on, the muscles engaged, and John started to fight his way out of his burning house. He wasn't twenty-nine any longer, and wasn't in a bathrobe, but _he knew that noise_ and pushed his way out of the grip of whoever was in front of him.

"Dad, what the hell," came the voice again, affronted now, still ignorant of the danger. Hands clutched his shoulders as John struggled to his knees, and he threw them off, gasping.

"...as fast as you can," groaned John, and then his head started to clear and he felt the cold dirt under his fingers, loose and sticky, wet from rain. He rested on hands and knees, all jumbled inside, and the hands were on his shoulders again. A warm palm on the back of his neck, someone crouching close by. John mumbled, "Don't look back," and opened his eyes.

It was Dean, of course, thumbing the edge of a cut in John's eyebrow. "You got the hardest head I ever saw," the boy muttered to himself, and nimble fingers traced all over John's skull, finding the goose egg at his crown and the split lip and the scratches on his jaw. "Can you walk?"

John sat back on his haunches and waited for the fog to move out from between his ears. It was slow, slower every time, and he was getting longer to heal. Dean was busy, stoppering the salt box and repacking the duffel bag. The boy was so together, every move economical and prepared, moving around the dirt pile so matter-of-fact. In the dim orange light, he was just an outline, a smooth shadow, a weapon.

"Did we win?" asked John, and as he said it he recognized that light, and the danger-noise, and knew they'd won as the bones burned away. But it was thrilling, watching Dean nod his head all casual, still busy, and then pause to look at his father.

"Don't we always?" and the little flash of white teeth. "Come on."

_I made that weapon_ , John wondered to himself. He accepted the hand Dean offered and heaved himself to his feet. He tried not to stagger and failed.

Dean was just grown up enough to be subtle about acting like a crutch for a middle-aged man. He helped his father back to the Impala and John sat in the front seat dabbing peroxide onto his cuts while Dean waited for the corpse-fire to die out. It didn't take long, just a minute or two of him standing in front of that hole in the ground, the flames low now, six feet down. The boy said something to the grave and smirked, that way he had that wasn't something John had taught him and wasn't Mary either, something that was all Dean's own. And then he set to shoveling all that dirt back in the hole, just like that, like he could work all night because he probably could. He was seventeen and as far as he knew the most powerful creature in the world.

John wasn't quite sure whether to chuckle or be afraid.

By the time the task was done, John's aches were stiffening. "Hey," he said, as Dean started around to the passenger side. "You want to drive her?"

Goggle-eyes and awed grin. "Yeah," said the boy, and came to claim the keys. He swaggered a little, like a drunk only the liquor that had him was that taste of being a grownup. It should have been a warming sight, but it struck John cold. Seeing his son full of life made him feel that much closer to dying.

They jostled shoulders, as John shifted over toward the passenger side and Dean slung himself in behind the wheel: a casual thing, just two people figuring out the space, and John restrained himself from anything overt. Dean was too old for a chuck on the chin, too old to be given it and too old to take it well. Dean put his hands on the wheel like a little kid at play, and John saw those wrists poking out from his sleeves. Narrow still, delicate. He'd been late to puberty, and still hadn't filled out all the way. He could stand to pack on at least another ten pounds of muscle, and even then, John would outweigh him by a fair clip.

"Gentle with my girl, now."

"Yessir," Dean replied, not looking at his father but at the dirt road in front of him, half-dazzled. He put the Impala in gear and drove them out of the graveyard at breakneck pace, humming some tune to himself, giddy as a girl.

John watched him, how he tapped the wheel with his thumbs. It was the same rhythm as the throbbing in his head. "Hey," he said, after a while, "you thinking about going solo?"

The boy swivelled all the way around on the bench seat, till he wasn't even looking at the road. "What'd I do wrong?" asked Dean, brows furrowed.

"Nothing, watch the road, will you?" John busted out. Dean got back in his lane. It was a country road anyway, quiet and only a few houses, but it was late enough in the night that the early people might be beginning to stir. No point killing the living. "I just meant," and it was hard to say, suddenly, "that you did good out there. Didn't need me for backup."

Dean relaxed a little, flexed his elbows. He was getting used to the idea of belonging in that driver's seat. "Yeah, it was pretty awesome." He sucked on his teeth, trying and failing to hide his glee.

John laughed, because he was supposed to and because it would make Dean laugh. They stared out the windshield together at the lightening sky ahead of them, and made it back to their place before Sam was even awake.


End file.
